German, Dutch mills secure largest US flat steel quotas

German and Dutch steelmakers are the clear winners from the US changing its section 232 25pc import duties to a tariff-rate quota by product and country.

Dutch steelmaker Tata Steel will be able to ship 489,600 t/yr of flat-rolled products to the US duty-free from January, according to a document specifying the quotas obtained by Argus. To calculate the flat-rolled volumes open to European mills, Argus used the following 10 product categories stated in the document — hot-rolled plate in coils, hot-rolled sheet, hot-rolled strip, cold-rolled sheet, cold-rolled strip, flat-rolled coated, flat-rolled hot-dipped, plate in cut lengths, electrogalvanised sheet and strips, and tinplate. Tinplate is the largest duty-free quota for the Dutch mill, amounting to 195,794 t/yr.

Argus omitted some categories with small volumes, such as cold-rolled black plate, from its calculation of overall flat-rolled quotas.

Duty-free hot-rolled plate, sheet and strip volumes amount to 195,210 t/yr for Tata.

German mills will have access to a total flat-rolled quota of 451,847 t/yr across the same 10 product categories, the second-largest of any European country. Germany has a tinplate quota of 121,185 t/yr, with a smaller hot-rolled plate, sheet and strip quota of 83,253t. The next largest overall flat-rolled quota, for Sweden, amounts to 152,222 t/yr, while France has a quota of 127,139 t/yr and Italy 113,670 t/yr.

Evidence of the comparatively small size of the quotas for European strip products may assuage the concerns of buyers that significant supplies will be sold to the US once the section 232 amendment takes place — mills have been using the duty change to suggest there could be a further shortage domestically going forward, as they sell spare supply to the US. But Tata Steel, the biggest beneficiary of the quota change, will be able to ramp up its volumes from current levels. It has shipped 226,350t of strip products to the US so far this year, according to customs data up to 22 November. It can ship more than double this volume with no duty from January.

By Colin Richardson